Mechanitor Start

[marcusaddamsson]

Well... it's different. One pawn, one robo hauler and one robo builder. I picked a guy that's got two 'tears' in shooting, growing and social. I've never kept the game speed 3 for this much. Sped thru the first year like it was nothing.

Never used nutri-paste before. Talk about simple! It isn't possible to make those paste meals to store, is it? And you can't micromanage the robo-builder at all, short of creating custom zones and sending him there. But it is kinda neat that I sleep/whatever and they just keep chuggin' along.

And waste. Now I see why waste was added to the game.. gotta be a price to pay for all this 'convenience' someday... ;)

[brian_va]

Originally posted by marcusaddamsson:

I figgered whatever I was missing I could make up with some decent recruiting. If I could find a pawn to marry, and he was a good crafter... would that be enough?

this was kinda how i went as well, the starter had i think med, int and animals as the primary skills but had a couple points in crafting but she'll never be a master. the first prisoner, however, was already an elite constructor and crafter with passions in both, so it made sense to add him. i don't believe the items with a quality level are mechenator only, but i've been wrong before today, and haven't gotten to the final level of mech research so no idea about the stuff that adds.

i also edited the start and brought a tunneler, as i wanted to do a mountain base, but keeping some level of charge on the bot took alot of micro until i unlocked the charger for it, but i understand that a self-imposed problem. plus it was somewhat difficult getting to that point as you only have so much bandwidth for "production" and "fighting" bots and compromises rarely end well. to be fair, i was at pretty high wealth (200k or so building a nice hotel for the hospitality mod) with just a couple guys, so that was fairly self inflicted.

in the end, adding some more guys to round out the skillsets and for firepower was needed, so it wasn't a solo game like i went into it expecting. i also made the mechanator a vampire, so there went control during deathrests, and they were a sizable portion of the defenses; a bad idea in retrospect.

im gonna roll again, probably tagging crafting, medicine and research, adding in a social pawn as it happens. we'll see how that goes.

[marcusaddamsson]

Yea. When I was starting this game, I realized I had no idea what to expect. So my rule was good at shooting (or will be with a bit of practice) and that was about it, other than no negative traits, etc. She's got a minor 'itchy' scar that's 1% pain. I think the biggest issue I got right now (short of the fact that I got a pack of pigs living in my dining room 'cuz they'd freeze if I let 'em out), is if I can figure out how to age reversal for a transhuman. Hasn't kicked in yet... it's nearly the end of the year and I've barely made a dent in any sort of research.

I will say this, my pawn is a total shut-in. Between the Guaranlen tree and the bots... she couldn't caravan unless her very life was at stake. And it's been fun dealing with winter again... I'd been in the Jungle for a long while on last playthru.

OOOOoooo. Another manhunter pack! Instead of three squirrels it's five guinea pigs! Oh my... whatever shall I do?

[brian_va]

age reversal is fairly deep down the research tree.

[marcusaddamsson]

It's not too bad. It's only a 1500 pt research... 'cept you need the hi-tech bench. I just need to build that and it shouldn't be big deal. I've been starting with tribals... it's nice to be that high on research from beginning.

[di eshor ribly]

To be fair trying to add gauranlen tree pruning to a mechanitor play through was probably a bad idea. Dryads are "hippy mechs", true metal is superior. Not having to deal with all the pruning will free up a lot of your time for more worthwhile activities, like research. If you want you can have another pawn do the pruning later... or the mechanitor can do it later when all other tasks are taken care of.

My usual starting mechanitor has at least combat skills (preferably melee), crafting, medical, intellect, and social. Some cooking skill helps too, for medicine crafting later. I rush for tunnelers or grab an early convert for mining and let the bots do the busy work.

Later on in the game I try to give my mechanitor either a persona monosword or a persona zeushammer and a good shield belt. They hide behind my main gate while the robots fight outside, and smacks whoever tries to come through the door. It helps keep your precious mechlord a little safer.

[marcusaddamsson]

Yea, I get that. Given how little I know about scenario... and it happened early, shrug the offensive bump early is kinda nice. I just figgered.. what the hell, ya know? The mechanitor is pinned at home, like the Guar guy... and she's good with plants, so it's only about 3.5 hours a day to maintain for two dryads.

Like I said, mostly just kinda waiting. With this game, when I'm starting a new start setup, I figger I'm gonna restart several times as I understand what to do better. Like the first time, I had a builder guy... but that was kinda overkill, so I thought plants/social might not be a horrible idea. Besides.. who enjoys rerolling characters endlessly?

[di eshor ribly]

Definitely, I use Character Editor (locked to start editing only, it does nothing in game) to make my starting pawns. It took me... three or four attempts before I realized how to get a mechanitor start rolling somewhat properly. It's definitely different and a bit tricky at first.

The first random pawn didn't need much editing, I removed their scars to start with a fresh slate, made them 21 years old, etc. Good range of skills and passions, most of which ended up being turned off and ignored as robots took over. Got his head popped by a lancer when he leaned around a corner to shoot.

The second one ran into your issue of "early game time traps" and didn't progress in research fast enough to fight off the plague (penoxyciline/decent medicine would have helped).

The third time I added a second pawn to the start to help out, but messed up a starting condition. They landed with no social interactions between them, no "landed together" or tribal buffs. Social fights started up because of their bad living conditions and well.. we all know how that story ends.

[marcusaddamsson]

Heh. Yea, I can't use Character Editor, far too close to cheating, not that I'm judging... that's just me.

Oh yea.. I forgot one trait that really made me wanna pull the trigger on this pawn: super-immunity.

I fully intend to lose this run (not trying to, just sayin'), and will consider all advice going forward.

BTW, isn't amazing how many games end with a pokin' his head out to get a shot on mech w a lancer....? Boom, dead. End of line.

[di eshor ribly]

Yup, that's why I go the melee-shield belt route now. The mechanitor is way too valuable to risk casually, and you can't even remove the mechlink for reimplantation if the head is destroyed. Shield belt cowardice for the win!

[VoiD]

You might want to start looking for good miners, mechs can't do deep drilling and you'll need tons and tons of steel and plasteel for your mechs eventually.

Using long range scanners is an alternative, but you'll still need a human to guide the caravan, and transporting steel is quite heavy.

[marcusaddamsson]

Yea, I get that. I'm completely starved of steel right now. It's been a slow first year... the game's given me zero help. I've had three or four slaves, but they've all been too screwed up to help, so a bit of harvesting to help my med skills up.

It's rather funny... the raid engine doesn't know what to do. "He's got nothing. Yea, but it's raid time..." Three squirrels, four guinea pigs, and just now five house cats. LOL. I'm just waiting for the snow to clear up a bit, and I can get back to work again.

[di eshor ribly]

Further fun fact for tunnelers: they do not work for the Quarry mod (or didn't back when I tried), but they do work for the Mines mod.

Some people may not like the thought of infinite resources (or near infinite), but holy rimbiscuits is it expensive to run a transhumanist mech lord base. There is no shame in using mods to tweak your game to be more enjoyable... or harder if you're a masochist.

Fun ways to prevent yourself from 'cheating' too hard with Mines: set your basic resources (steel/plasteel/uranium) to "mine until 1000", and silver/gold to "mine until 100". Do not set a bill to dig up components, keep that job in the fabricator.

It may still be infinite resources but in a finite supply, still at the mercy of production/supply lines/expensive projects. You will have to wait for your mechs/miners to work...but you don't run into the Quarry issue of overstocking resources either.

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

Originally posted by di eshor ribly:

Further fun fact for tunnelers: they do not work for the Quarry mod (or didn't back when I tried), but they do work for the Mines mod.

Some people may not like the thought of infinite resources (or near infinite), but holy rimbiscuits is it expensive to run a transhumanist mech lord base. There is no shame in using mods to tweak your game to be more enjoyable... or harder if you're a masochist.

Fun ways to prevent yourself from 'cheating' too hard with Mines: set your basic resources (steel/plasteel/uranium) to "mine until 1000", and silver/gold to "mine until 100". Do not set a bill to dig up components, keep that job in the fabricator.

It may still be infinite resources but in a finite supply, still at the mercy of production/supply lines/expensive projects. You will have to wait for your mechs/miners to work...but you don't run into the Quarry issue of overstocking resources either.

Tunnellers will work in the Quarry mod, so it has likely updated since you last used it.